BUTCHER: A sWine Bar

Today for lunch we ate at this place called BUTCHER: A sWine Bar. It's located in the Warehouse District and pretty much lives up to its reputation as a cool, casual, hip place to have lunch. It was full of all different types of people, from business men to hipsters. The premise is all about meat and meat products, but not in the gross, over-the-top, 'meat-lovers' kind of way. This is evident form the giant poster of different cuts of pork on the wall behind the main counter. All their sausage, salami, pancetta, and other types of meaty things are made on the premises, and they usually try to incorporate meat into things that normally don't have meat in them (like Bacon Pralines). The restaurant also has a curious Italian vibe, which I think comes from their use of traditional Italian names for meats. I really appreciated this because it made it more authentic, and payed homage to the famous Italian meat culture.

I ordered the Buckboard Bacon Melt, which has bacon, Swiss cheese, collard greens, and pepper aioli on it. I was a tiny bit apprehensive because I don't really like collard greens all that much, but the sandwich was very good. I love sandwiches, and I LOVE making them. I put just about everything that I can on the sandwiches I make. Sometimes they get unmanageable, but most of the time they're absolutely delicious. While I take great pride in my sandwich making ability, I could never have come up with this sandwich. The bread was perfectly grilled, just crunchy enough on the outside but still warm and buttery on the inside, and it was so simple (just 4 ingredients) but so tasty. The aioli added a lot, I think, and helped mask the often overpowering flavor of collard greens. It was an interesting Italian twist on a typical American sandwich with typical Southern vegetables.


What I liked most about the meal, though, wasn't actually the sandwich, oddly enough. It was the chips. These chips were made on the spot and fried to perfection. They were salty, but a little sweet, and melted in my mouth. They were quite possibly the most delicious chips I had ever had. When we were little our dad always used to make homemade chips, which were always superior to any chips that we could get from the grocery store. These chips were as close as I've gotten to those. They weren't fried too much, just right, so that they weren't to crunchy. They were almost paper thin, which made them even more delicious, in my opinion.

What made the meal even better, though, were the portions. I hate it when restaurants serve huge portions, but I also hate it when restaurants serve portions that are too small (and almost always super expensive). Not only were the portions just right, but it also was cheap. I ate all of my chips and sandwich and didn't feel stuffed at the end, just pleasantly full, and my sandwich was only 9 dollars.

I highly recommend this place, because it certainly delivers. Also, on a side note, BUTCHER is also attached to a restaurant called Cuchon. Cuchon (and BUTCHER), have won many accolades recently and have been on various definitive food lists from all over the country (including the New York Times!). For more information, check out their website: http://www.cochonbutcher.com/

-Christian
p.s., I must give credit for the pictures (since I forgot to bring my own camera): http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2652/4187349389_7e21e0f0c1.jpg, and http://biteandbooze.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/dsc07343.jpg